half omen half hope
by TolkienGirl
Summary: 손 : The Guest: This is what nobody ever tells you about fear: sometimes, you survive it. (Title and interior quotes by Joanna Klink's poem of the same name.) [Finalefic-Yoon, Gil-young, Hwa Pyung]


_i._

_When everything finally has been wrecked and further shipwrecked,_

_When their most ardent dream has been made hollow and unrecognizable,_

_They will feel inside their limbs the missing shade of blue that lingers_

* * *

Imagine a hand. A hand, and a pool of light. A shape—the bones of something beautiful. Silver and red and beads and _light_.

_Pray for us sinners_. Release, if you will, the idea of your own power, and let the waves carry you back to shore.

Salt and water, two things that can be holy and two things that can be deeply, cruelly wicked. Bless them, keep them, claim them, save them.

Imagine that you are happy.

(Imagine that you get to be happy.)

* * *

A month has passed.

"I do not usually do this," Gil-young says, pressing her fingertips against her damp cheeks. "_Cry_ like this."

Yoon tucks his lower lip between his teeth. When he answers, she is reminded of _him_, not because they were alike but because they were different. Together, they were two halves of the world she wanted. "It is understandable," Yoon says. "Grief."

They smile at each other, painfully. They have both known grief, and they both know that it is never the same, each time it comes.

* * *

How much did you love him?

As much as you fought for him, and grumbled his name under your breath like the most beloved of curses. As much as you swallowed down brackish seawater, trying to find him, trying to save him, trying to bring him home.

Here is what you would say to the hellions who spat your mother's name at you, who spat the memory of her blood at you.

_I know_, you would say. _I know she is dead. Nobody knows it better than I do._ And you would shrug away that pain like an old coat, like something you no longer need. You would carry the gem of her memory outside the filthy reaches of sorrow.

You should do the same for Hwa Pyung.

* * *

_ii._

_In the quiet woods, from the highest trees, there is always something_

_Weightless falling; and he, who must realize that certain losses are irreparable,_

_Tells himself at night, before the darkest mirror, that vision keeps him whole._

* * *

You have begun to call her by her name. You do it tentatively, since she _is_ your senior, and priests ought to be polite—but she _did _tell you that you could.

And you lost everything side-by-side, so it seems only right that there are no longer any barriers or formalities between you.

"Gil-young."

Her eyebrows lift.

Once, you would have found it difficult to say the words. Now, you look her in the eyes. "Tomorrow I say Mass for Hwa Pyung's soul. Will you come?"

She nods.

She sits in the front pew.

* * *

This is what nobody ever tells you about fear: sometimes, you survive it.

This is what nobody ever tells you about pain: an ache is worse than anything else.

* * *

"Still alive, the rascal," Gil-young slurs, around a mouthful of spicy ramen. She is three shots of soju deep. Every time you try to stop her, she slaps your hand away. "I will kill him when I find him, for playing such a trick. Try and stop me, priest."

You reach for her hand, and her hand goes stiff. Gently, you press your fingers against the ridged scar that runs along the center of her palm. The wound passed straight through—like a hammered nail.

(She saved his life with that wound, if only for a moment.)

You say nothing. She says nothing. And then her face crumples and she drags the fingers of her free hand over her eyes and she shakes with sobs that are as silent as a still day.

Gil-young is one of the two bravest people you have ever known.

The other is _still alive, the rascal._

* * *

(Imagine that you get to be happy.)

* * *

_iii._

_On the verge of warm and simple sleep they tell themselves certain loves_

_Are like sheets of dark water, or ice forests, or husks of ships. To stop a thing_

_Such as this would be to halve a sound that travels out from a silent person's_

_Thoughts. The imprint they make on each other's bodies is worth any pain_

_They may have caused. Quiet falls around them._

* * *

They are safe, they are well, they are somewhere far inland and they cannot hear the sea at night. You believe it is a mercy, to be truly blind. To not have to wonder what it means.

No storms rise that summer. The water is as quiet as a grave.

(You remind yourself to breathe.)

* * *

_Father forgive them. They know not what they do._

The sand shifted beneath your feet. The waves swirled and grimaced and would have dragged you under. The night sky was pierced by an angry moon, and you prayed to someone beyond the moon.

Not the prayer of an exorcist.

No. You were not strong enough for that. Not strong enough, and you gave that up. Not steady enough, and you gave that up. Not lord enough over all the earth, and you gave that up.

Pride was the devil's sin. He never knew what to do with humility.

* * *

Imagine the way I loved you. Who am I, and who are you? (It could be any of us.)

* * *

They are running.

They are running, they are standing still, and he is standing on the other side of time.

(Imagine the way I loved you. Imagine that we get to be happy.)

* * *

After all this time, a litany. A string of beads, of months, of prayers. You smile because you saved them. You smile because they saved you.

* * *

In a tangle of arms and elbows and salt-dusted sleeves, you embrace. You hold one another like the world has ended.

You hold one another like nothing has ever ended at all.

* * *

_iv._

_For nothing cannot be transformed;_

_Pleasure and failure feed each other daily. Do not think any breeze,_

_Any grain of light, shall be withheld. All the stars will sail out for them._

finis


End file.
